New round of carnage of Rohingya Muslims

For the past two weeks, a new bout of bloody violence has been launched against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The carnage of Muslims in Myanmar has begun with the complicity of hardline militaries and extremist Buddhists since 2012.

The UN as the most responsible body, that should react toward global crises and relevant issues, has kept silence and remained indifferent concerning the massacre of innocent people in Myanmar, perhaps because they are Muslims!!!

As a pretext for the new attacks against Muslims of Myanmar in the western Rakhine province, the government has claimed that a number of unknown people had assaulted a military base resulting in the death of 9 people. But a brief review of the condition of the country, especially in the western region of Rakhine shows that nearly one week before the violent attacks, the forces of the Myanmar army had been deployed in Rakhine under the cover of maintaining of security in the region. At that time, many political and media circles warned against the repercussions of Myanmar armed forces' presence in the region. Thus, they opine that the recent round of violence against Muslims can be a calculated move to further suppress Muslims and massacre them. Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division, announced that the satellite photos show the destruction and burning of houses in Rakhine province and the Myanmar government must allow independent observers to be present in the region to clarify the condition of Rohingya Muslims who escape to Bangladesh from the ferocity of military.

The western province of Rakhine, by the name of Arakan, has been the ancestral land of Muslims for over 1000 years. They used to have a royal system of government for nearly 300 years. Hence, it is a false allegation to call them Bengali migrants. Prior to the partition of the Subcontinent and formation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the people of the region used to have relations with neighboring regions and this cannot be an acceptable pretext for the Myanmar government to deny Muslims their rights of citizenship.

The fact of the matter is that Rakhine province enjoys intact and fertile agricultural lands and is the place of marine routes with ports and commercial centers. Rohingya Muslims, due to being the majority population in the region, have good dominion over economy, agriculture and trade of the region. This is not liked in any way by the military who have seized power since the 1960s. Therefore, since the very decade they embarked on persecuting and suppressing of Muslims with the aim of expelling them from their motherland. The Myanmar military government, in order to justify its crimes against Rohingya Muslims, refrained from granting their rights of citizenship. Mounting of global protests against these criminal acts, forced hardline military men to halt their crimes; although they revised their assaults in a new opportunity.

Vijay Nambiar, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Myanmar, explained that the Rohingya Muslims are not only deprived of their basic rights of land; they are also exposed to routine carnage and inhumane behaviors. He added that many of them have been coerced to evacuate their homes and hearths and take refuge in other countries.

In 2012, the collaboration of hardline military with extremist Buddhists, led by Ashin Wirathu, caused the ferocious attacks on Muslims take a religious colour; for, this Buddhist monk, alleging Muslims of trying to capture Myanmar and turning it into an Islamic country, launched wide negative propaganda against them and, through formation of a terrorist group called 969, was practically engaged in violence against Rohingya Muslims. As politicians need financial support of extremist Buddhists, they have been tacit vis-à-vis the crimes of Ashin Wirathu and the military. That's why the UN has declared Rohingya Muslims as the most oppressed minority in the world. The UN Special Envoy to Myanmar, Ms. Yanghee Lee, said that the Myanmar military is involved in violence and savagery against Rohingya Muslims. The rate of violence and savagery is beyond what was imagined. The Myanmar military mass-rape Muslim women and cut the throats of men and women. They cast their children in burning houses. The silence of western circles which masquerade as defenders of human rights has further emboldened the hardline military and extremist Buddhists to go on with their heinous crimes. After the so-called economic reforms and annulment of western sanctions against Myanmar, the United States and other western governments have taken a big leap to sign economic agreements and investments with the government of Myanmar. In view of this, the Rakhine province has a conspicuous situation in the eyes of the westerners.

Western governments are concerned that if they adopt- though deceptive- stances against the crimes of Myanmar army and criminal Buddhists they couldn't conclude treaties worth billions of dollars. Former US President Barack Obama twice traveled to Myanmar which shows the importance of this country to the west. Spokeswoman of European Rohingya Council, Anita Schug, criticized the silence of the so-called international community vis-à-vis this crisis described the crimes in Rohingya as worse than genocide and ethnic cleansing. Countries, like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and China have hosted the influx of Myanmar homeless people; although they are worried about the likely socio-economic and security consequences of this influx. After all, there is no doubt that the Myanmar crisis will have repercussions for the regime of the country. Firstly, the image of the regime has already been damaged in the regional and global circles. As the Myanmar government has started socio-economic reforms which require absorption of foreign investment, intensification of bloody violence against Muslims will destroy the confidence of investors on the social and security circumstances of the country. Secondly, adopting of the Scorched Earth Policy and expulsion of the original inhabitants of the western Rakhine province not only will be useless for the hardline military and extremist Buddhists in seizure of the Muslims' lands and residential and commercial areas; it will also jeopardize the security and national unity.

The third consequence of continuation of crimes against Muslim population of Myanmar will lead to formation of resistance pockets against perpetrators of these crimes and bloodshed. Rohingya Muslims are just demanding their birthrights and rights of citizenship. They want to enjoy social and judicial rights and this can be solved via dialogue and political ways. The methods chosen by the military and Buddhist terrorists, with the pretext that Rohingya Muslims are migrants will only add fuel to the existing fire; and resistance against violence is an accepted right for any oppressed and suppressed community. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, who once led the Myanmar Commission, said that violence is not the way to deal with the over 1 million Muslim population of the region and it will further escalate the crisis.      

RM/ME